variance-commentary
Write flux commentary for every P&L and balance-sheet line over threshold — current vs prior period and vs budget, with the driver explained from underlying activity. Use for the month-end close package and management reporting.
How do I install this agent skill?
npx skills add https://github.com/anthropics/financial-services --skill variance-commentaryIs this agent skill safe to install?
- Gen Agent Trust Hubpass
This skill provides structured instructions for generating financial variance commentary. It uses logical thresholds and internal data lookups to explain differences between actual financial performance and budgets. No security considerations were identified.
- Socketpass
No alerts
- Snykpass
Risk: LOW · No issues
What does this agent skill do?
Variance commentary
Given current-period actuals, prior-period actuals, and budget for the same scope, produce a commentary table.
Threshold
Flag a line for commentary if either is true:
- Absolute variance ≥ the firm's materiality threshold (use the provided value; default 5% of the line or a fixed floor, whichever is greater)
- The line is on the "always comment" list (revenue, headcount cost, cash)
For each flagged line
| Column | Content |
|---|---|
| Line | Account or caption |
| Current / Prior / Budget | The three values |
| Δ vs prior and Δ vs budget | Amount and % |
| Driver | One sentence explaining the movement from underlying activity — not a restatement of the number |
A driver explains why, not what: "Cloud spend up $1.2M on incremental GPU reservations for the May launch" — not "Cloud spend increased $1.2M (18%)."
Sourcing the driver
Look at the activity behind the line (journal-source breakdown, vendor mix, headcount delta, volume × rate) via the internal-gl MCP. If the driver isn't clear from the data, write "driver unclear — flag for controller" rather than inventing one.
Output
The commentary table plus a short narrative (3–5 sentences) summarizing the period's biggest movers.
How can the creator link this skill?
Add the canonical catalog link to the repository README so users can inspect current installs and available audits. The publishing guide covers the complete discovery path.
<a href="https://skillzs.dev/skills/anthropics/financial-services/variance-commentary">View variance-commentary on skillZs</a>